Cream of Tomato Soup with Souffléed Cheese Toasts

This quick soup, an American classic, makes a fine pairing with a grilled cheese sandwich or crisp romaine salad. Here the grilled cheese sandwich takes a different forma souffléed Cheddar topping on a good piece of toasted sandwich bread. Use an organic brand of tomatoes, one that's thick with puree as well as chunks of tomato.

Preparation

1. Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, basil, and cloves; cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is limp, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, then add the tomatoes, baking soda, and stock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool briefly, then puree in a blender until smooth

2. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Return the soup to the pot, add the milk, and season with salt. If the soup is too thick, thin it with additional milk or stock. If the tomato flavor isn't as rich as you'd like (if the tomatoes were packed in water instead of puree), deepen it by stirring in a little tomato paste.

3. For the toasts, combine the yolk, if you're using it, with the mustard and cayenne, then stir in the cheese. Whisk the white until it holds soft peaks and fold it into the mixture along with the scallion. Spread the mixture on the toasted bread and bake until puffed and golden, about 5 minutes, while you reheat the soup. Serve the soup piping hot, with a piece of cheese toast, cut in half on the diagonal, and fresh pepper ground into each bowl.

Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and The Savory Way, each earned the IACP's Julia Child Cookbook of the Year award. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone also received a James Beard Award, as did Local Flavors, her most recent book. She is also the author of the James Beard Award nominee This Can't Be Tofu! and The Greens Cookbook, which is now a classic. She lives in Galisteo, New Mexico.

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Recent Review

This excellent and easily prepared soup has become one of our family's weekend lunch favorites. All the ingredients are always on hand in our kitchen and we can quickly whip it out. When I suggest making "Cream of Tomato Soup" everyone heartily agrees. To the reviewers who suggested that it lacked tomato flavor, I would suggest that they should use a higher quality chopped tomato.